How to Write a Self Insert - Mark's Quest
by Cormag Ravenstaff
Summary: Hark! Behold! There's a quest to be taken upon us all! But be wary, for we have quite the mighty journey on our plate...and we may not all come back alive.


_-Preface-_

 _To readers familiar with this little game of mine, welcome back! To new readers unfamiliar with my other work like this, welcome!_

 _I have been a member of this fandom for a long time. Playing Fire Emblem games since I was eight or so and have played all of the titles. Today also marks the five year anniversary of my writing career here on this site, and more importantly in this fandom._

 _Now, perhaps some of you newer readers don't know this, but back when I started here, there were SO many stories about the tactician of FE7. There'd be a new one popping up every day, and you couldn't go far without seeing one getting updated._

 _Now, my five-year-ago self was impressed by everything. And I took a liking to these, and many were Self Inserts. I read a lot, to say the least. I picked up on all the tropes, all the patterns and every strategy of typical Fire Emblem Self Insert. I knew them inside and out._

 _So naturally, I want to thank every SI writer that I ever read, talked to or just saw writing offhand. You got me hooked into this fandom, and I haven't stopped. You've be the root of my motivation for five years, and now I actually just got published a few weeks ago._

 _So thank you for impressing me when I was much younger._

 _But I'm afraid my story last year mocking Self Inserts was rather popular. Many requested a sequel. I told them that there was only one other game I could do this style of fic on if I ever decided to write another of these. One so close to my heart I'm all sorts of biased towards it._

 _So buckle up. And try not to get offended like a few of you did last year. This comes from my heart._

 _Probably._

 _-X-_

" **Ahem, can you hear me? Is this thing on?**

" **Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Mark, and this is what my voice sounds like. Shocking, I know. But that's the price of having no lines.**

" **Today, we've got a bit of a quest on our hands. How did I, a man who has little to no screen time, no lines, and nothing to go off except the default name 'Mark', become such a figure of Self Insert culture in this fandom?**

" **Well…I have my theories. Allow me to take you on a journey—a quest—and show you just what I'm talking about…"**

 **-[Prologue: A Girl From the Plains]-  
** -[Read: A Hottie From the Plains]-

"…are you awake?"

Ugh. My head. Is that a bruise on the back of my head?

Damn…wait, where am I?

I open my eyes to see a _stunning_ green haired woman in front of me.

" **Hello? Can you hear me?**

" **So, as you can see, we've started at the beginning of this quest. We'll be studying how…predictable it is. And I wanted to start off with something rather obvious.**

" **Did you catch it? Well, let me give you a bit to see if you can spot it in the next few lines."**

"I found you unconscious on the plains."

Wow. She is _gorgeous._ I must be in heaven.

"I am Lyn, of the Lorca tribe. You're safe now. Who are you? Can you remember your name?"

C'mon brain! Talk to the pretty girl!

"My name is Mark."

"Mark? What an odd sounding name…"

" **You know, I take offense to that. There are people with names like Marcus or Serra, and you think** _ **Mark**_ **is an odd name? I'll have you know it is a completely—**

" **Ahem.**

" **Sorry. But did you notice what I mentioned? How our character is rather…taken by Lyn?**

" **I would wager a minimum of 75% of FE7 SIs have the main pairing be MarkxLyn. It seems that is best way to get views and forgo the creativity required to pair Mark with a character with far less screentime.**

" **Like Matthew! Are there any fanfics that ship F!Mark and Matthew?**

" **Oh shit, there is.** _ **A Brilliant Mind,**_ **about Mark and Matthew. Well, consider me bamboozled.**

"Bandits!" cried Lyn. "They've come down from the Bern Mountains. I…I have to stop them!"

I felt at my side and found a sword. Perhaps I could use it? Regardless, I can't let Lyn just go out on her own!

"I can help, Lyn."

" **Hey, you know what would be interesting? A Self Insert in third person. Bet you there aren't many of those."**

"You can use that?" she asked, pointing at my sword.

Not really. "More or less. I'm more of a strategist by trade. But one must defend themselves on the road." Let's not get into the whole 'I'm a fugitive from Bern running for my life because I wouldn't support King Desmond.'

Lyn nodded in approval. Yes! "Stay behind me. Don't take any risks."

" **Ah, the obligatory mysterious past. I'll be honest, this is one of the better ones. Running from Bern? I like that. Or they're usually running from Etruria.**

" **So it works. It's just…typical. Still, it could be worse.**

" **I suppose this makes for a good bit to distinguish here. Perhaps you are more acquainted with Self Inserts from the game Awakening where a vast majority of the Inserted characters came from Earth through a magical portal in their 3DS.**

" **Now, FE7's SI culture isn't without these, but there are far more like this one we're observing: A guy running from Bern/Eturia, genius tactical mind, follows all the tropes aside from magically teleporting to FE, bangs Lyn.**

" **Am I forgetting anything? Let's fast forward a little bit."**

Whew. We did it. Bandits equal dead.

"Mark, you sell yourself short. You're rather gifted with that blade!"

" **Yikes, already have to interject again. Now, contrary to what you might believe, but we are seeing somewhat of an oddity here. Most SIs simply have the tactician be the brains of the group rather than doing the fighting.**

" **It can be rather difficult to separate the by the book Self inserts from the stories that are simply OC tacticians. But in all my reading, I find that most typically fall prey to the same shortcomings. Ergo, we will be considering them in the same category for now.**

" **Whew, Lots of talking. Let's fast-forward a bit."**

 **-[Chapter 1: Footsteps of Fate]-  
** -[Read: My Boon Companion!]-

"Oh my heart! What a dazzling vision of loveliness!"

Lyn turned her head. "Hm?"

"Wait, O beauteous one! Would you not favor me with your name? Or better yet, your company?"

A knight clad in green walked up to us. His grin was infectious.

No! Bad! Don't smile, he's flirting with Lyn!

" **Ah, Sain. What a man, what a man. Truly you are a paragon, truly."**

"Where are you from, sir knight, that you speak so freely to a stranger?"

"Ha! I thought you'd never ask. I am from Lycia. I hail from the Caelin canton, home to men of passion and fire!"

"Shouldn't that be "home to callow oafs with loose tongues"?"

"Ooooh… You're even lovely when you're cruel."

"Let's go, Mark. I've nothing more to say."

I was relieved.

" **I couldn't resist letting us see Sain for a bit. The real focus I wanted to look at is a bit in the future…"**

"Milady, are you certain we can trust this man?" Kent asked, staring right at me.

I frowned. I had barely met the guy, and he was already doubting me?

"Sir Kent, while I value your assistance, I trust Mark. He will help us fight these bandits. If anything, you and your companion are ones I ought not to trust due to your convenient arrival. But the odds are stacked against us and I will need your help fighting these bandits," Lyn replied coldly.

All three of us took a step back out of shock. Even me, though I couldn't help but feel how quickly my heart raced when Lyn defended me.

" **You'll actually find that the game script is loosely followed most of the time. Definitely a plus, though the nature of it is due to Mark not having any lines in the game and the writer needing to give thems—I mean Mark, some lines.**

" **But almost without fail, you will see a higher deviation when it comes to Lyn. After all, Mark and Lyn have to end up together, yeah?**

" **So bizzare speaking about myself in third person. Moving on."**

"Kent, worry not! Nothing shall happen to Lady Lyn while she is under our care!" Sain waved a hand, gesturing to himself and me.

Maybe he wasn't such a scoundrel after all.

"I would never let such a beautiful woman come to any harm!" Sain declared. He lifted his lance and charged the bandits.

I take that back.

" **Typical of Self Inserts, you'll find Mark gets along with everyone and almost without fail, every single member of Lyndis' Legion will get along perfectly with Mark.**

" **I can buy getting along with half of them, maybe even seventy five percent, but all of them? Just because the writer loves the characters does not mean they all ought to get along with their avatar.**

" **Allow me to point you toward Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn. A vast cast of characters, all of whom are made more interesting by the disagreements they have with each other.**

" **While this is a crucial lesson, we're due to jump forward to meet a familiar face."**

 **-[Chapter 6: Blood of Pride]-**  
-[Read: Everyone Has A Vastly Different Interpretation of Matthew]-

I entered the house, seeking to warn the residents of the battle outside. And with the growing numbers of our party, my role of tactician meant staying back.

"Hey! Can I talk to you?"

I spun around on the spot to see a brown haired man leaning against the wall.

"I'm Matthew, a specialist in acquisitions of all kinds. Would you like to buy my services?"

"We have no use for a thief."

"Are you sure about that, Mark?"

My hand went to me sword. "Who sent you," I responded, scathingly.

" **That certainly escalated quickly. The plot of Mark's personal backstory never comes up after the first chapter until we meet Matthew.**

" **Rule number one of FE7 Self Inserts: Matthew ALWAYS recognizes Mark. Always.**

" **He always knows who Mark was and where he came from. He always threatens Mark with telling Ostia where he is. He always is doing shifty stuff when Mark is around. And most of all, he ALWAYS becomes one of Mark's best buds by the end.**

" **Not gonna lie, can't blame him for that last one. Matthew's a bro.**

" **But seriously, variety is the spice of life."**

"I think we can come to an arrangement." Matthew's smile was easy, not betraying any inner machinations.

"Oh?" I said, gritting my teeth.

"Information for information. I'll even forget about the whole charging you for my service bit. We can help each other."

If Bern found me…

That would be the end of me.

"We talk about this after the battle, understood?"

Matthew nodded, a smile taking over his features.

" **Find me a story where Matthew doesn't play a notable role. I dare you."**

 **-[Chapter 10: The Distant Plains]-  
** -[Read: Don't Change This Chapter Title, It's Perfect]-

We made it.

Castle Caelin, within our sights.

" **We skipped over some of the previous moments, but allow me to quick point something out we missed. Eagler. There's almost always something with him. Sometimes he survives, sometimes he dies.**

" **But almost always, we see Wallace use his influence to gain the support of Eagler's troops, and they join for the final battle.**

" **I mean, it makes sense. You need more than a dozen people to take a castle. But at the same time we stumble upon the theme prevalent through this quest.**

" **Variety. Once you read one story about FE7's tactician, you've read them all. Very little differs between them.**

" **History lesson time! Once upon a time, back in the year 2005, a writer posted the first tactician story in the fandom:** _ **Hammer of Terrascars**_ **. You can trace all these similarities back to that fic. One of the short comings of how close-knit the FE community was back then is that the same ideas got recycled over and over. The same readers injected the same ideas into their writing and it just went on and on.**

" **Wow. Got off track. Think of it like a side quest?**

" **I'll shut up now."**

"We've come far." I looked across the lands of Caelin, seeing the castle in the distance. My eyes were drawn to Lyn's as she stood next to me.

"I know," I answered. "Hard to imagine that not long ago, I was waking up in your ger."

" **A ger is essentially a yurt. One person used this word once, and now it's in most FE7 tactician fics."**

"Simpler times, for sure." Lyn looked worried.

I wrapped my arm around her shoulder. "What's wrong?"

"Aside from my grandfather's illness?" Lyn said, worry lacing her tone. "What…what happens after we beat Lundgren? Am I suddenly a noble? Will I return to the plains ever again?"

Shit. How do I comfort her?

"Let's focus on getting to your grandfather first, okay?" I said.

She smiled at me. "Thank you, Mark."

" **And then a big battle happens, no one dies, Lyn and Mark live happily ever after, yeah?**

" **Well, kinda. No one ever dies in the first part of tactician stories from FE7. If on the off chance character death happens in a fic of this nature, it is always saved for Eliwood's tale. This is largely in part due to how most people can't bear to kill their favorite characters off in fanfiction.**

" **But more interestingly is what happens between Mark and Lyn. In most cases, one of two outcomes happen:**

" **One, they get married.**

" **Two, Mark just leaves.**

" **But regardless of what happens, we always see Mark turn up in a particular place…"**

 **-[Chapter 11: Taking Leave]-  
** -[Read: Oh hai mark]-

The bandits came without warning. Had it not been for Rebecca's warning, Mark wouldn't have made it out of the tavern in time.

" **Hey, I've got a question, Mark.**

" **Why the hell are you here?"**

Together, we made our way through the village to the edge. Bandits hadn't taken control of the entire place yet, so the confusion served us well.

"C'mon! If we can make it to Pherae Castle, we can enlist the help of Lord Eliwood!" Rebecca urged, running faster than me.

"I'm coming!"

" **And so we see our protagonist showing up out of nowhere, just in time. Sometimes, we'll see interludes showing how Mark got there, but more often than not, we don't.**

" **But if we do, it's usually Bern or Etruria trying to capture him for his tactical genius. Or Mark is running from Lyn because he thinks they can't be together due to his commoner heritage."**

"Lord Eliwood!" shouted Rebecca, seeing the lord in the near distance.

 **-[Chapter 15: Noble Lady of Caelin]-  
** -[Read: Suddenly Mark and Lyn Don't Get Along as Well]-

"One year!" she shouted, forgetting momentarily how close Laus troops could be. "You vanish for a year! I thought you were dead!"

" **Ah yes, now Mark faces the consequences of just…vanishing for a year.**

" **I actually rather like this bit, as conflict between characters is rarely a bad thing. It makes the story interesting."**

"Lyn, you have to understand. I couldn't stay in one place very long. Bern is desperate for my talents, as is Etruria!"

" **However, we do see something rather prone to stories of this nature crop up in the next few chapters.**

" **Once Mark and Lyn resolve their conflict, which takes a few chapters (Usually three at most), the writer loses interest and the story is never updated again."**

"And you couldn't have told me that? I could have helped you!"

"I didn't want to put you in danger!"

" **They usually kiss and make up around Port Badon. And usually quite literally."**

 **-[Chapter 18: The Dread Isle]-  
** -[Read: Leila Fans Show Their Colors]-

We landed just in time to save her.

Matthew and I went to go scouting and found the Ostian spy Leila, wounded and bleeding out. Together we brought her back, and left her in Fargus' care.

" **I don't see anything inherently wrong with saving Leila. It makes for an interesting difference (I am admittedly biased). However, we do see some things commonly crop up with this change.**

" **Matthew usually immediately becomes more friendly to Mark, tying in with how most fics have them being buddies. We also usually never have Leila stay with the party, and the change exists solely because the writer just doesn't want Matthew to be sad."**

 **-[Chapter: Final: Light]-  
** -[Read: Almost No Writer Ever Made It This Far]-

A dragon.

Nergal, crumpling to the floor with the last vestiges of life leaving his old form, had summoned a dragon to fight us with his dying breath.

" **Sorry to jump so far ahead, but like the title says, not many people made it this far when writing their tactician stories. So there's not much to say about it.**

" **Except the tactician, no matter their combat capability, never kills the dragon. Shocking, no? But almost without fail, the writer has one of the main lords finish off the beast.**

" **Of course, it's usually Lyn, but we'll let that slide. Just this once.**

"…

"…

"…

" **Well, that brings our quest to an end. I hope you've come to see that the downfall of FE7 tactician fics are not about the typical SI tropes you're used to, but rather the predictability. It can be hard to see unless you've read a multitude of fics, but trust me, all these points I touched on are quite frequent in FE7 fics.**

" **Now, if you'll excuse me, my good friend Matthew promised me he'd take me out to drinks with Leila. I, of course, asked if I could bring my wife, Lyn, along. He's loath to turn me down and I am very well aware of that. So with that, adieu!"**

* * *

 **Author's Note: Thank you for reading! It's rather seldom that I get people requesting sequels, but my Awakening fic got that. I think this story will please a lot of people, particularly those who enjoyed using it as a guide of what-not-to-do in SIs.**

 **Now, I want to address one thing: the tone. My Awakening one had a bit of a harsh tone that I unconsciously pulled back on this one. It's very much still in the same vein, but it didn't come out nearly as hard hitting as I expected. I believe that's for two reasons:**

 **One, I don't think I could bring myself to hate on Self Inserts from the FE7 world too much. I still have a soft spot for them. Hell, I wrote one for my shitty first fanfic. I can't bring myself to tear into them like I did for the Awakening piece. And two, I just honestly don't remember the cringe-worthy stuff for FE7 SIs nearly as much as I did for Awakening SIs as they are far more recent for me.**

 **Still, I hope you laughed. I'm not as fond of this piece, as with the other one I planned the idea for a few years before writing it. But I still am proud of this one.**

 **P.S. Maybe this fanfic will become relevant if FE7 gets the Echoes treatment.**

 **P.P.S. Did you like this fic? Chances are you've read my other story in this style. But if not, I encourage you to go look at my similarly titled story. But my good friend Hammershlag recently wrote a story that is in the same vein as these fics, though it analyzes Original Characters as a whole. Not only did I get some good laughs out of it, but there are some really valuable lessons in there to any up and coming writer. I highly recommend it.**


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